Israel: Right or Wrong? (Part 2)

Tonight, we continue our discussion of whether or not we should support Israel no matter what it does by examining the reasons many conservative Christians say yes.

Because saying anything against Israel means you are anti-semitic.

Adding a little clarity to muddy water helps here.

If I say she can’t drive as good as a man, I’m showing misogyny, albeit in one of its milder forms.

If I say he’s drunk because he’s an Indian, I’m showing bias against Native Americans.

If I protect my wallet when passing a group of black teens but do not do the same when passing white teens, I’m showing anti-black prejudice.

Likewise if I paint Jewish people, individually or collectively, with stereotypes or negative character attributes JUST because they’re Jewish, then I’m being anti-semitic.

If I say something a Jew, either individually or collectively, does is wrong JUST because it is wrong is NOT anti-semitic in the best definition of the word.

If so, then much of the OT and God’s self may be viewed as anti-semitic.

The Holocaust was one of the world’s greatest atrocities, but it does not make calling Israel out for its own atrocities anti-semitic.

Because they are God’s covenant people.

Modern Israel is not biblical Israel.

Ancient Israel was a theocratic monarchy in covenant with YHWH, a covenant centered on the Torah, the Law of Moses. Modern Israel, while making special provision for Jewish citizenship and drawing on Jewish ideals and values, claims (or at least aims) to be a secular liberal democracy. It makes no official claim to be in a divine covenant and does not have the Torah as the basis of its laws. (Michael Pahl, online sermon, 8/25/14)

This is seen by examining the first basic law of each.

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 NIV84

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

The law deals with the electoral system, the right to vote and be elected, date of elections, the service of Knesset members, the parliamentary immunity of the Knesset members and the Knesset buildings as well as the work of the Knesset and its committees. (This was the first Basic Law of Israel passed 2/12/58)

This can be contrasted with Arabic states that embrace Sharia Law based on the Quran either partially (Iran) or totally (Saudi Arabia).

Many modern Jews claim to be Jewish by ethnicity (Jewish is not a separate race), not by religion or are only tokenly religious.

This view erroneously makes modern Israel the heir of the promises made to biblical Israel.

Galatians 3:28–29 LEB

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.

Ephesians 2:14–15 LEB

For he himself is our peace, who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of the partition, the enmity, in his flesh, invalidating the law of commandments in ordinances, in order that he might create the two in himself into one new man, thus making peace,

It also erroneously misidentifies the Sinai covenant as the most important in the OT.

Genesis 12:1–3 LEB

And Yahweh said to Abram, “Go out from your land and from your relatives, and from the house of your father, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse. And all families of the earth will be blessed in you.”

Galatians 3:15–18 LEB

Brothers, I am speaking according to a human perspective. Nevertheless, when the covenant of a man has been ratified, no one declares it invalid or adds additional provisions to it. Now to Abraham and to his descendant the promises were spoken. It does not say, “and to descendants,” as concerning many, but as concerning one, “and to your descendant,” who is Christ. Now I am saying this: the law, that came after four hundred and thirty years, does not revoke a covenant previously ratified by God, in order to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is from the law, it is no longer from the promise, but God graciously gave it to Abraham through the promise.

So, the promises made to biblical Israel (those that are not time and place restricted) grow out of the covenant made with Abraham and belong to all those who are in Christ.

Now, for the most contentious question, what about the Mosaic covenant?

This was a conditional covenant.

Exodus 19:5 LEB

And now if you will carefully listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you will be a treasured possession for me out of all the peoples, for all the earth is mine,

It was a covenant the prophets said Israel broke time and again.

Jeremiah 11:9–10 LEB

And Yahweh said to me, “A conspiracy is found among the people of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the iniquities of their former ancestors, who refused to obey my words, and they have gone after other gods, to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their ancestors.”

So irreparable was the break, a new covenant would be necessary.

Jeremiah 31:31–33 LEB

Look, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day of my grasping them by their hand, bringing them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant that they themselves broke, though I myself was a master over them,” declares Yahweh. “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts and on their hearts I will write it, and I will be to them God, and they themselves will be to me people.

But Jeremiah said Israel and Judah.

Luke 22:20 LEB

And in the same way the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

All of which leads us to Hebrews.

First, we read Heb 8.1-7.

Following these verses, the writer quotes Jeremiah verbatim. [8-12]

Then:

Hebrews 8:13 LEB

In calling it new, he has declared the former to be old. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is near to disappearing.

Interesting note: Barclay points out the writer used diatheke, which refers to a will, not suntheke, the normal word for covenant.

Maybe this is too obvious, but did God excuse biblical Israel’s conduct, right or wrong?